Passion and purpose as a now thing

Which of the things you love to do have you been doing lately? Whether by choice, chance or circumstance of late, which ones might have become the things you will do again one day? Amidst the need during the pandemic to jump in moments to doing something else for cash flow, and the constant requirement to check websites to work out what you can and can’t safely do in public this week, trying to stay safe around this (or any virus) we fear really, can be a bit of a buzz kill.


But as we in Sydney/NSW start to re-emerge from solitary/defacto/share house/family confinement, as I talked to people last week about ‘what next’ for expressing their passion and purpose, I couldn’t help but notice a little bit of hesitation; a habit we’ve got into of looking left and right first for permission, to see if we REALLY can, before we pick up momentum in our gait, walking out the door.


This is a terrible metaphor, but I couldn’t help but remember back to my years growing up and helping out on farms (and doing work experience at domestic and agricultural vets during the Zoology and Agriculture portions of my Biological Science degree) to when you brought the animals into the yards, for some form of activity to manage or take care of them. When you’re done and it’s time to let them back out to the paddock again, very often, when you re-open the gate or door again, and just leave them to be, it takes a while for the sheep or cows or one of the horses to be the first to head on back out the gate to the paddock, despite the fact that they’re now free. Until the animals decide to wander back out, grazing as they do. Or to perhaps floor it and gallop a few hundred metres, in the similar way I used to, to when me on a motorbike or me on one of our horses would do, once we were through the gate and had the open expanse of paddocks out in front to travel into. 


It seems like when you put humans in home confinement, we’re not that much different, in that, as we head back out into the world, there is a similar hesitation and looking left and write (back to the website) to work out what you can and can’t do, and if this new freedom is really allowed and going to last. For both, doing is temporarily suspended by a process of discernment. Some things that we love to do, we may have been able to still do at home. But it’s time to give ourselves permission to do more of it again, in the here and now. In fact, it’s worth remembering you don’t need anybody’s bloody permission to find ways to live our joy in the first place.


No-one has the right to dictate the space in our head, where our inner most thoughts exist. We get to choose what things that we love, that we think about in there. We don’t need external permission to feel what we feel, or to love who we love, or what we love. We don’t need external permission to find expressions of what we love. But we might like to choose to call our power and energy back from thoughts and daydreams about what we will do again ‘some day.’ And instead bring it back to what we can do right NOW. To letting the energy of it permeate every one of our experiences and actions we take right now. Because passion and purpose is not just a thinking and a feeling thing. It’s a doing thing.


Some of the typical reasons in the old world why we might not have been pursuing our passion and purpose might have sounded a little bit like: “I’m not allowed,” I’m not good enough at,” ‘maybe it won’t work (and I’ll look bad),” ‘maybe its not wanted,” “I don’t have time to,” or “I need to do or have this first and then I can….” I think one of the biggest fears of right now is “maybe it won’t last?” Sometimes too, we repress it. A PhD holding friend once said that the human body had the capacity to be in pleasure states ALL the time. But it’s we who shut it down because of….. (insert belief, story, fear or social convention). Why don’t we think we deserve to feel good and do what we love, more of the time?


I don’t need to do another workshop about exploring what my passion and purpose is. I just want to DO my passion and purpose.
I don’t think about the possibility of dancing in my lounge room. I just dance in my lounge room.
I don’t want to do a deep dive think about what’s getting in the way of me being better at playing a piano again; I just want to sit at my keyboard and play something until I know a piece and it flows.
I don’t want to wait until the world is “open for face to face business” again before I create spaces for Women to connect and share again. I pick a date and create a space and a way to do it under current circumstances, and then it happens sooner than the ‘one day’ we might be waiting for again.


Much of this is about giving ourselves permission.
Inviting the energy and expression of what we love into ourselves.
Connecting with it.
And then running with the desire it inspires to do something about it.
To make it practical and implementable in the world.


It’s not some mythical thing off out there somewhere. It doesn’t have to be so complex. We just need to decide, do I do I not want to make room to be, do and have more expressions of what I love in my world today. 


Circumstances might change, but no-one can ever take our capacity for love, passion and purpose away, unless we let them. How will you make room to do more of what you love in your world this week?


Until next time....


Nat

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P.S. If you would like to explore the "what next for next year?" part in a little more depth, you are most welcome to join me on the below webinar and masterclasses...

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